Richard Arnold Bauman, 80, a retired Coast
Guard Rear Admiral and Merchant Marine officer who saw duty in World War
II and in Vietnam, died February 15, 2005, of cancer at his home in Annandale.,
Virginia.

Admiral Bauman was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts,
and graduated from what is now the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in 1943.
He began his career in the Merchant Marine as third mate on the liberty
ship Stephen C. Foster, which offloaded bombs on Omaha Beach at Normandy
from shortly after D-Day in June 1944 until that September.

He served in the Merchant Marine for 14 years,
the last nine as "a coal boat stiff" on boats plying the Atlantic Coast.
He remained a Merchant Marine officer until he joined the Coast Guard in
1957.

In the Coast Guard, he was commissioned a Lieutenant,
and in 1967 became commanding officer of a Coast Guard division operating
out of Da Nang, Vietnam. He took part in the coastal patrol portion of
Operation Market Time and was the inshore division commander on February
29, 1968, when his squadron intercepted and destroyed a North Vietnamese
steel-hulled trawler at Cape Mia in southern Vietnam. The munitions-laden
trawler exploded after being fired on by Admiral Bauman's cutter, the Point
Welcome.

"That's the closest I ever came to buying it,"
he told friends.

He retired as commander of the 1st Coast Guard
District in Boston in 1983. His decorations included the Legion of Merit,
the Bronze Star with Combat "V" and two awards of the Meritorious Service
Medal. He was a graduate of the National War College.

In retirement, he joined other volunteers in
the effort to save the John W. Brown, a World War II liberty ship. For
36 years, the ship had been a floating vocational high school in New York
City and then was on the James River for five years as part of the National
Reserve Fleet. Admiral Bauman and his fellow volunteers restored it.

"He got down in the holds and cleaned out the
muck right alongside everybody else," fellow volunteer Ernie Imhoff said.
Berthed in Baltimore Harbor, where its keel had been laid in 1942, the
Brown is one of only two liberty ships that are still operational.

Admiral Bauman was a noted lighthouse expert
and had climbed 680 of the 740 lighthouses in the United States. The high
point of his lighthouse research occurred in 1994, when he participated
in the relighting of the U.S.-operated lighthouse on Navassa Island off
the coast of Haiti.

He also collected the "Steve Canyon" comic
strip and had every one of the daily and Sunday strips from 1948 to 1990.
Responding to a request from Mrs. Bauman, cartoonist Milton Caniff researched
the service ribbons for which his comic-strip creation Steve Canyon was
eligible and included them, for the first time, in a drawing that he presented
to Admiral Bauman as a welcome-home gift when he returned from Vietnam
in 1968.

Admiral Bauman's wife, Dorothy H. Bauman, died
in 1998.

Survivors include four children, Richard A.
Bauman Jr. of Pikesville, Maryland, Robert A. Bauman of Arlington, William
L. Bauman of Falls Church and Elizabeth Simpson of Longwood, Fla.; two
sisters; a brother; and three grandchildren.
Courtesy of Project Liberty Ship:

Rear Admiral Richard A. Bauman, United
States Coast Guard, Retired, died February 15, 2005, at the age of 80.

Admiral Bauman was born August 16, 1924, in
Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime
Academy in 1944. Following graduation he sailed as a licensed deck officer
in the U.S. Merchant Marine with wartime service in various Atlantic and
Mediterranean convoys, and participated in the invasion of Normandy aboard
the Liberty ship STEVEN C. FOSTER at Omaha Beach. After World War II, Admiral
Bauman remained in the merchant marine until 1957, holding an unlimited
master's license and a first class pilot license for the waters from Massachusetts
to Virginia.

He received his commission as Lieutenant in
the United States Coast Guard in 1957. His early assignments included Operations
Officer on CGC CASCO (WHEC 370), Boston, Massachusetts; Marine Inspector
in Portsmouth, Virginia and Savannah, Georgia; and Executive Officer on
CGC CHINCOTEAGUE (WHEC 375), Norfolk, Virginia.

Admiral Bauman graduated from the Armed Forces
Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1967. Upon graduation he reported
for duty in the Republic of Vietnam, first as Chief Staff Officer of Squadron
One and then as Division Commander of Division Twelve, where he commanded
thirteen 82-foot patrol boats and two Navy Swift boats engaged in anti-infiltration
duties. On February 29, 1968, patrol boats under his command intercepted
an enemy trawler laden with arms and ammunition at Cape Mia. The enemy
blew up the trawler to avoid capture. During this tour he was awarded the
Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V, the Vietnamese Gallantry Cross with
Gold Star, and the Bronze Star with Combat V.

Admiral Bauman returned to Norfolk in 1968
to serve as liaison officer to Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet. He commanded
CGC INGHAM (WHEC 35) from February 1971 to May 1973, followed by a one-year
tour ashore as Chief, Information Systems Division at Coast Guard Headquarters.
In 1975 he graduated from the National War College and returned to Headquarters
as Chief, Port Safety and Law Division. From 1978 to 1980 he was Chief
of Operations in the Ninth Coast Guard District. He was promoted to Rear
Admiral on July 1, 1980, and became the first Chief of the newly formed
Office of Navigation. In June 1983 he assumed command of the First Coast
Guard District. Admiral Bauman retired on June 30, 1985. Admiral Bauman
held an honorary doctorate in public administration from the Massachusetts
Maritime Academy.

After his retirement, Admiral Bauman joined
the Liberty Ship Project in New York and became an avid volunteer when
the SS JOHN W. BROWN came to Baltimore in 1988. He helped the ship in many
ways, notably when he obtained on permanent loan most of the ship's guns
from an arms depot in Indiana, earning him the nickname of "Guns" Bauman.
But he maintained that his major contribution to the ship was his son,
Rick, who has been the chief mate of the BROWN since 1988. Among his other
interests, Admiral Bauman, as a noted lighthouse expert and historian,
climbed 680 of the 740 lighthouses in the United States.

He married the love of his life, Dorothy (Dottie)
Schmalz Bauman in 1948; she died in 1998. They had four children and three
grandchildren; he is also survived by two brothers and a sister. Admiral
Bauman always said that he wanted to be married for 50 years, command a
large Coast Guard cutter, and become an Admiral; he got all his wishes.
As he once wrote, "Few people get to do exactly what they want to do in
life, and I am one of the most fortunate of these few." Admiral Bauman
was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
BAUMAN, RICHARD AR/ADM US COAST GUARDDATE OF BIRTH: 08/16/1924DATE OF DEATH: 02/15/2005BURIED AT: SECTION 8 SITE 6049 ESARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY